Book Review: House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland

Hey friends!

As you may have realized, I love books that get my heart pounding. Mystery/thriller and horror are two of my absolute favorite genres. Therefore, I was super excited when I saw on Instagram that I could receive an ARC of the book House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland if I was one of the first 50 people to sign up for a book club that Penguin Teen was hosting with the author. Obviously, I signed up right away. Thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for getting that ARC into my hands so I could participate in that book club and give my honest review of the book. House of Hollow comes out in the US on April 6, 2021.

Goodreads

Summary

Iris and her two sisters Grey and Vivi disappeared for a month as children. They were found with no memory of their time missing, pitch black eyes, and identical scars at the base of their throats. In time, their hair turned completely white. As adults, Grey and Vivi have both become famous in their own right; Grey as an internationally known supermodel and fashion designer and Vivi as an underground rocker. However, Grey is now missing and Iris has no idea what is going on or how any of this may connect to their original disappearance- or the seemingly supernatural events that have been cropping up around the Hollow sisters.

Review

Like the last book I reviewed, She's Too Pretty to Burn, House of Hollow really excels at aesthetic. In the book club I attended, the author and other readers mentioned the movie Midsommar. I've also seen that movie and I concur that the feeling of dread while surrounded by beautiful nature scenes and florals is exactly what House of Hollows contains. However, I do think House of Hollow is almost more blatantly sinister in tone, with rot and decay on full view for much of the book. Tl;dr: this book is great if you love creepy atmosphere.

I did like how Iris was definitely normal--a foil to her super worldly and weird sisters. I did think this made her point of view a little boring at times since we didn't get to see the coolness of Grey and Vivi too closely (they don't live at home anymore), but made it easier to connect to the perspective character. It also made some parts of the story even scarier because I just wanted this poor teenager to be okay.

And speaking of scary, wow. Adult horror doesn't scare me (the aforementioned Midsommar was really fun but not super scary to me) but I got to the ending of this book a little late at night and had a bit of an existential scare. Definitely look at trigger/content warnings for this one if you're not a big horror reader. I don't want to give away the "big twist" everyone is raving about, but it's a doozy, and I ate it up.

I would recommend this book if you love dark fairy tales, stories that get a little weird, and/or horror.

I gave this book 4 stars!

Thanks again to Penguin Teen for the book event I attended for this. It was great to be able to hear that plot twist (and other aspects of the store) discussed! 

Kyra